MCS Influencer Response - Randy Chaffee-PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing, LLC. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Intro: Hello everybody. My name's Alex Tolle. I'm here at metalcoffeeshop.com, and I am here with Randy Chaffee. Thank you so much for being here, talking about our metal influencer topic for August. How are you, Randy?

Randy Chaffee: I'm well, Alex, how are you?

Alex Tolle: I'm good. So glad to be here with you.

Randy Chaffee: It's great to be here.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, I know everybody's used to seeing Megan's face here, but, surprise, you get me today.

Randy Chaffee: That's okay. We may never go back to Megan, who knows?

Alex Tolle: Oh, we'll see. So our August question for our metal influencers is what is your advice for contractors who are thinking about starting a sheet metal fabrication business?

Randy Chaffee: Well, it's a great topic, Alex, because so many people, timely, I guess I'd say, because so many contractors and people are looking into that now and it's a very growing area. I talked to a lot of the equipment people and the coil people, I'm a coil guy as well and it's just really growing. So I think the biggest thing is make sure you reach out early to the people that are going to be able to influence you. That would be the equipment people, that would be the coil people, that would be all your component people, because not only do you want to get those things set up early and make the right decisions, but when you work back and forth between the equipment people and the coil people and the accessory people, there's so much knowledge between all these people that's been doing this for years and years and years and most of us have probably helped 20 to 100 people get involved in this at the start.

So we really have a pretty good understanding of what's worked and what hasn't worked, because the key is you want to hit the door running or flip the floor running I guess is what I want to say when you open. And you can avoid so many of those pitfalls and those issues that everybody's learned by, because as guys as suppliers, if we've helped 50, 100 people get started in the industry, we've probably seen it all. We've seen the mistakes, we've seen the issues, we've seen the errors and we can really, really help guide you into that endeavor. And I think the big thing there is to be open-ended with your questions, ask for help, don't be afraid to ask, because it's a big investment. And the equipment's going to be your first thing, but I would really guide once you make that equipment decision and ask why it's going to be number one, what equipment are you going to go with, what your line going to look like, that's going to give you your space, that's going to give you some of the logistics within your own facility.

The next thing is you're going to need to find your coil and you're going to need to find your accessory items. And the sooner you can get those things in place early, the better off you're going to be. Because as it grows, I've seen it so many times working with people, Alex, they get right up to the end and then they get in panic mode because they'll call somebody like myself. And one of the products I handle is fasteners and vent material and things like that, barn door track, a lot of those other accessory items. Well, it's like, "Well, we're opening next week." Okay. "And we have none of this stuff coming yet." And then they get into panic mode. And it's an undue stress level that you don't need.

So while in a perfect world as a supplier I think you ought to all call me and just we'll take care of you, but the reality is not everybody's going to do with everybody. So the important thing is make that decision upfront as early as you can. Many times I've had situations with the guys that we have their initial orders for all of that stuff put together two or three months before they're ready to open the doors, all we have to do credits, done, established, what the inventory levels look like. And it's literally a matter of when you're down to a week to 10 days, tell me to make the PO open and we'll ship the product to you. It's just one more thing you don't have to worry about when it gets close to the end, because regardless of how organized you try to be with this thing, there's going to be 1,001 little hiccups that pop upas you approach that, okay, we're going to open next week.

And what you don't want to say is, "I'm going to open next week, and I guess I ordered some coil, but I don't think I ordered any fasteners. Oh geez, I don't have any vent material." Whatever the case may be. So get that out of the way well in advance and ask for the advice, because there's a lot of us that's been doing this for a lot of years. So that would be the biggest thing. And going to it, there's still lots of room out there right now. That's the beautiful thing with the metal industry, I've watched this thing grow. And the good news so far, I guess what I want to say, Alex, is that the pie keeps growing faster than the number of people dipping into the pie so far.

So even guys that get into role forming in an area that feels saturated, the people that are already there still continue to grow their business and the new folks jump right in and start doing business. Now, will that change someday? Maybe. But the metal as a segment in the roofing industry is still growing at a fast enough clip that they're still plenty of opportunities for guys to get involved. Just remember and I think last month we talked about it a little bit, Megan and I, the big warning I would make to people is it's more than just opening the door one day and turning on the machine and we'll start rolling some [inaudible 00:06:06] right?

All of a sudden you've got all the payables, you've got all the receivables, you've got all the warranty issues to deal with, where if you're buying it from an existing roll former, you literally give them an order, they ship your product and there's a problem, it's theirs to take care of. Not to say you shouldn't do it by any means, but just remember that you want to think all those things through and be prepared for the logistics of how you're going to handle that. What do I do when I have an issue? What do I do when I have a problem? Who do I call? Try to get that thing organized in your head because, like I said, I've been with guys that I've stopped in the day or two or three after they started and it's like I wanted to run and hide because they want nothing to do with me because they're just like, "Go, go, go. And this is not working and this equipment didn't do what they thought it was going to."So they're going to have those things. That's just part of startup. Again, get as much of that out of the way as you can prior to the start.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, I think just to recap what you just said, it's so important to lean on the people who have been doing it for so long, don't be afraid to ask questions, get that advice from them, because they've seen all these issues come up, what's going to come up last minute, if it's your first time doing it, how would you know? So definitely don't be afraid to ask those questions to the experts.

Randy Chaffee: Exactly, Alex. And that's the key is all of us that have been doing this for any length of time on the manufacturer's end of things, where I come from, like I said, we've went through it a million times with people, probably seen it all and if we don't have the answer to that specific question, we know somebody we can get the answer from. We all have those people, I have several and I can think of one that I want to name-drop, but it's one of those roll formers who's been doing it forever, great friend. And it's like any question I don't know, I can call him up in the evening and say, "Hey, this guy's asking me this question, man, I'm not sure. I don't know what to do with this thing. I'm not sure how to guide him on this one." And he'll say, "Well, give me a little specific, what's going on? What's he worried about? What's happening?" And usually we can come back with some kind of an answer.

So it's not just that we may as suppliers know all of the answers, we probably know a bulk of them, but we got the library of people that we can go to to find that out. And not just back to our manufacturers, but we can go to customers that have 20, 30, 40 years of experience that have probably seen it all by that point. And we can really help guide... And we want to, that's the key. In this industry, it's one of the things I love about this industry is we truly are a big family, if that makes sense. We do care about helping each other, we do care about helping... And that's one of the things if you're getting into the industry new that you're going to learn to appreciate and love is most people will help each other even if they're competitors.

I had an issue the other day where I had a question and I called a competitor and asked him, "What would you do about this?" I've been doing this four plus decades and I still wasn't sure, I wasn't sure I was right. So we help each other, because there's lots of business out there. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, we all grow together and the industry's big enough and growing fast enough that there's lots of business for everybody. We all still want to compete, we want to go get our business and I don't want you getting business from me and you don't want... We get all that competitive stuff, but at the end of the day, the better the industry serves the customer, whether you buy from me, you buy from my competitor. If you decide to buy from my competitor, I hope they take great care of you and you guys do great business together, because that only makes the industry better, if that makes sense.

Outro: Totally. I love that. Well, thank you so much, Randy, for sharing your insights on our August topic for our metal influencers. This has been great. And we'll see you next month.